


Basic Emotional Competency (and Other Things Not Yet Learned)

by Trixree



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Blood Drinking, F/M, Fix-It, Ghostly elements, I am taking a shovel and I am burying canon with it, M/M, OT3, Trauma Recovery, post season two
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-26 13:20:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19006603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixree/pseuds/Trixree
Summary: Past a certain point, the body stops feeling pain. Standing in his childhood bedroom, executing his father, Alucard does not feel pain. Watching his father crumble into a misshapen, ashy corpse, Alucard does not feel pain. Hearing the clink of his father’s wedding ring connect with the wooden floor, Alucard does not feel pain. He feels nothing at all.When the pain returns, it comes without warning. It comes all at once. And Adrian Tepes is lost to it.(It's a good thing that Sypha Belnades is one determined woman. She'll drag her boys to each other by the ears if she must.)





	1. Breaking

Past a certain point, the body stops feeling pain. This is a scientific principle. In some cases, this phenomenon is a symptom of shock, perhaps the result of adrenaline. As a man of science, Alucard knows this. However, recent trials have served to further educate Alucard about this specific principle. It applies not only to physical pain but to mental agonies as well. 

 

Standing in his childhood bedroom, executing his father, Alucard does not feel pain. (He hurts, of course he hurts, but in a distant, hardly-registered sort of way). Watching his father crumble into a misshapen, ashy corpse, Alucard does not feel pain. Hearing the  _ clink  _ of his father’s wedding ring connect with the wooden floor, Alucard does not feel pain. He feels nothing at all. 

 

Absolutely… nothing. 

 

“Is... is that it?” Sypha winces despite herself, staggering to her feet. 

 

“Alucard, did we do it?” Trevor’s hand remains firm on the handle of his whip.

 

The wind whistles through the broken, hollow window. The night outside is silent. Eerie. “We did. I… killed my father.” The words come unbidden. The bedpost underneath his hand is cold and smooth. 

 

“You ended a war on human kind. Don’t get weepy about it.”

 

Sypha extends her hand as if to touch Trevor. She stops, eyes wide and glittering, but not unkind.“Trevor’s right. You saved countless lives.” She takes a careful step forward. “But, it’s alright to mourn the man too.”

 

“He died a long time ago.” God, the truth of it should burn. It should scald on the way out of his mouth. It doesn’t. 

 

Sypha and Trevor exchange a lingering look. After a moment, Trevor shrugs and turns his eyes elsewhere. He lands on the portrait Alucard knows is hanging on the wall just to his side. He looks at it, too. Just so that he doesn’t have to see the softening in the other man’s eyes. Instead his mother's eyes stare back at him. He doesn't know which is worse.

 

When Sypha steps forward, it is loud in the room. “Alucard…” Something achingly warm touches his hand. He doesn’t jump—he can’t seem to find even enough emotion for that—but it is a near thing. His mother stares at him kindly from the frame. “Alucard.” Sypha is looking up at him, small as she is. Her body radiates heat and her eyes burn with profound care. It’s her hand, he realizes. She has placed her impossibly tiny, impossibly thin, impossibly powerful hand atop his, trapping him between the lacquered post of his childhood bed and her skin. 

 

Carefully, but not timidly, Sypha turns his hand over. He lets her. Into his hand, she places his father’s wedding ring. Alucard can’t stop his eyes from snapping to hers on reflex. He swallows. It feels rough in his own throat. That’s something, at least. 

 

“You should have this,” she tells him. 

 

“Thank you, Sypha.” The words come from somewhere distant, a space outside of his own mind, it seems. Trevor’s gaze on him feels suddenly too weighty. He turns to the hunter, curling his fingers around his father’s wedding ring and pulling away from Sypha as he goes. “Belmont… thank you. Both of you.” 

 

To Alucard’s surprise, Sypha is not so easily shaken. Her abandoned hand follows him as he turns, finding its way to his arm. “Alucard, you’re injured,” she tells him, stern where she had just previously spoken with impossible kindness.  _ You should have this _ … as if he is owed anything, in the end.

“All of us are. Bloody exhausted, too,” Trevor pitches in, turning and making towards the doorway with no small amount of forced casualness. 

 

“Where are you going?” Sypha steps a pace forward after him. She’s almost standing in his father’s ashes, now. Curiously, her hand does not leave its place at Alucard’s arm. He is pulled forward with her, only slightly. 

 

She shouldn’t be able to move him. Even a magician as powerful as she should not have the strength to pull him anywhere. His body feels uninhabited. Distant. Perhaps that is why he folds so easily to her whim, to her warm, insistent hand. There’s nothing left in his body to resist her. He is as hollow as resistless as paper.  

 

Instead of answering her directly, Trevor sighs the put-upon sigh of a man that believes himself to be incredibly burdened. “Alucard, is there a kitchen on board this nightmare?”

 

“Several.”

 

“Care to lead the way?”

 

* * *

  
  


“Fuck!” Trevor jumps an impressive foot backwards from the old stove, shaking his hand out vigorously. Well, at least he managed to turn the burner on while in the process of burning himself. Alucard thinks that he should probably make a snarky comment here. (He knows that the person he was just a day ago certainly would have.) Sitting at one of the smaller wooden tables in the kitchen, hunched into himself, Alucard still feels like part of him is asleep. Frozen. 

 

Dead. 

 

The kitchen he led his two companions to is one originally intended for guests and servants. As such, the room is fairly small as far as rooms in the castle go. There are only a few tables, the largest and longest of the two being obviously intended for dining. Its chairs have tall, swooping backs and curled arm rests. The smaller table, occupied by Alucard and Sypha, is closest to the actual kitchen itself. It is simple and unadorned with benches instead of chairs. It was probably meant to be a surface to chop and prepare food on, considering the thickness of the table top and the level of wear-and-tear it presents. A fire, lit by Sypha, crackles and burns steadily in the fireplace. Somehow, Alucard still feels a persistent chill. 

  
  


Trevor fills a kettle and sets it on the burner. He stays leaning against the counter, watching Sypha tend to Alucard’s injuries with a keen eye. 

 

“Shouldn’t you be healing on your own? Save the magic for the rest of us mortals,” he comments, sounding tired, but not… not without concern. Sypha also pauses in her ministrations, letting the healing-glow fade from her palms and her hands fall by her lap. 

 

“I sustained a considerable amount of physical trauma. My naturally expedited healing has already cared for surface wounds—cuts, bruises, that sort of thing. Repeated blunt force trauma to the skull is a little bit trickier. Especially given my current state of exhaustion and… well.” 

 

Sypha raises eyebrow. “Well?”

 

Trevor has gone tense where he stands by the warming kettle. “He’s thirsty, Sypha,” he supplies, helpful if not for his blunt manor.

 

“O-oh!” 

 

“Yes, ‘oh’,” Alucard finds himself saying. He stands, slowly. His body has begun to ache. Alucard finds himself delighting in the return of any sensation, regardless of what it is.

 

“Don’t worry, Belmont. Your virgin neck is safe from corruption. Father—” he finds himself tripping verbally, stopping over air that suddenly isn’t there “...Dracula kept livestock pigs in the lower levels.” 

 

Suddenly, in baffled unison, “Dracula drank pig’s blood?”

 

Trevor points at Sypha. “Jinx, you owe me a drink.” _Child._

 

If he had more energy, Alucard might roll his eyes. Instead, he ignores him. Sypha does, too.

 

“Yes, he...did. At times,” His voice sounds hollow even to his own ears. His head throbs. His throat is dry.  _ Fuck.  _

 

Cutting her scathing glare short, Sypha looks from Trevor to Alucard once again. “Is that sufficient? As a substitution? I have heard that Vampires need _ human _ blood, specifically. Though, that might be myth. It’s hard to discern sometimes.” 

 

Unsurprisingly, Trevor—resident hunter and self proclaimed expert in the matter—answers in Alucard’s stead. “‘S not myth. Animal blood only works for so long.” The man is no longer leaning against the counter as he had been. He’s turned towards Alucard, eyes narrowed, arms crossed in front of his chest. “Doesn’t it?”

 

Alucard sighs, feeling suddenly even  _ more  _ exhausted, even  _ more  _ battered. His headpounds.  “Yes, that is true. It is a temporary solution, at best.” 

 

The kettle begins to whistle. Alucard does not look up from the floor, nor does he move.  _ Nothing,  _ a voice in his head says,  _ we feel nothing at all.  _ He thinks of his father, roaming the halls of the castle aimlessly, waiting to turn to dust and blow away in the wind.  _ Did he stand in this same spot? Has he stood where I stand now, waiting? Waiting to feel something?  _

 

The kettle thuds duly against the countertop. It’s Sypha, not Trevor that has moved it. 

 

“Alright,” Sypha murmurs, seemingly to herself. She flattens her palms against her Speaker robes, brushing off invisible dust and dirt with broad swipes of her hands as she walks towards Alucard. 

 

“Sypha—” Trevor starts, lurching towards her in an aborted attempt at, who knows—grabbing her, perhaps? Stopping her from coming any closer to a hungry vampire? Bodily restraining her?

 

“Oh, hush, you,” she bristles. He hears her walk towards him with purpose. Alucard sees her feet, first. He still hasn’t raised his eyes from the floor. She’s kicked her shoes off at some point. He can see the tips of her socked feet peeking out from beneath the edge of her robes. “Alucard,” she says. 

 

“Sypha.” He looks to her eyes, as it is the thing to do. He’s not in control, he thinks. His mouth forms words without any conscious effort or intention. He doesn’t know how he’s staying standing. Near deliriously, Alucard thinks that his subconscious is driving things, now.  

 

“Sypha—” Trevor growls, a clear warning. He is closer to the two of them, now. Alucard can feel his heat, his apprehension closer to his back. A few steps away. Alucard swallows and it is dry.

 

“ Alucard, ” Sypha emphasizes.  _ Not Trevor,  _ she’s saying.  _ Fuck off, Trevor  _ is heavily implied. She’s going to do this. It’s in the set of her jaw and the burn of her eyes. She’s going to let a starving, concussed vampire feed of of her. Not even the last Belmont is going to stand in her way. Trevor’s jaw snaps shut with an audible click. 

 

“She would have liked you.” 

 

Alucard cannot fathom where the words come from. Without thought, without conscious effort at all, they simply… fell out of his mouth.  _ Fuck.  _

 

Sypha’s eyes are wide and tender. “Who would have?” 

 

“My mother.” The words sound far too vulnerable to his own ears.  _ Subconscious indeed. _ He gathers himself. “My mother would have liked you, very much.” That didn’t sound much better. Alucard still has the sound of a man trying desperately to compose himself. 

 

“Oh _ ,  _ Alucard,” Sypha says on a heavy exhale. Her hands, tiny, warm, impossibly strong __ hands return to him, each holding his arm gently just above the elbow. There is steel in her spine. His head hurts.

 

“What do I need to do? How do I help you?” 

 

“I—” Where words previously came unbidden, tumbling uselessly down and out of his mouth, now there is only silence. Half mad, he thinks  _ there’s no one at the wheel.  _

 

“How do we help you?” Sypha repeats, firm in her intention but gentle in her voice and eyes. 

 

_ “Sypha,”  _ Trevor hisses urgently. 

 

Alucard opens his mouth. He closes it again. Best not to make an even bigger fool of himself, he decides. 

 

“Trevor _.  _ He’s thirsty, you said it yourself. Did  _ you _ ever see him feed, even once, the entire time we’ve been traveling? Because I sure didn’t. It would be… cruel to deny him the one bit of aid we can provide,” her voice is vicious with her conviction. Her eyes bore into Trevor from over Alucard’s shoulder. Her hands tighten on Alucard’s arms. 

 

“Sypha, you’re not thinking. He’s a bloody  _ vampire,  _ he’ll drain you dry and I’ll end up scraping you off of the bastard’s teeth—”

 

“ _ Trevor!  _ It’s not like that and you know it.” Without turning, Alucard can practically hear Belmont’s teeth grinding together. “Stop letting your fear drive you. What we three have been through…” she turns back to Alucard, locking eyes with him. It’s like a punch to the gut, a heavy impact. Something in Alucard’s head is screaming. His vampire instincts are burning for some sort of resolution. He hungers. She continues, “I trust you. Both of you. So, let me help you, Alucard.” 

 

She raises her wrist to hover just in front of Alucard’s mouth. He suddenly inhales, sucking in a great gasp of air. The steady thud of her heartbeat pounds in time with the bone deep ache in his head. His stomach clenches powerfully. Embarrassingly, Alucard sways on his feet, fighting to stay upright and not bent over, clutching at his abdomen. 

 

Four pairs of warm, human hands are on him, steadying him, before he can blink. 

 

“Okay, goddamnit, no, I’m not letting you two idiots do it like this, Jesus,” Trevor grumbles. He gets his hands under Alucard’s arms, tugging him back towards the benches. Sypha trails after them, her hands never leaving Alucard’s hips. Under any other circumstance, Alucard might call the way she holds him tender _. Intimate,  _ even. He half collapses onto the bench, grateful to be off of his feet. 

 

Sypha is suddenly just…  _ there,  _ sitting next to him, the pulse in her wrist pounding away too fast and much too close. Her eyes bore into him. Trevor straddles the end of the bench, caging Sypha in the open vee of his legs, though not trapping her. With a sharp thud, he sets a silver knife down on the table top. Thankfully, the magician’s keen eyes then move to the hunter's instead. 

 

“Trevor,” she starts, gearing up for another argument. 

 

“I’m not going to stop you. I’m not happy about it, but I’m not going to stop you.” He exhales, heavily. Closes his eyes. Curses under his breath. “Alucard.” Trevor isn’t looking at him. He’s looking at the wall behind him. “It would be easier on her if you drank from both of us, wouldn’t it?” 

 

“Oh,” Sypha breathes. 

 

The words stick in Alucard’s mouth. He takes a moment. “Yes, it would be easier on both of you physically. But neither of you are under any obligation. This is practically insane.” 

 

“As if anything we’ve done in the past few days has been sane,” Trevor quips. 

 

“Alucard, we’re here.” Sypha slips her hand into his, but she’s looking at Trevor, not at him. “Let us do this.”

 

“ I am not in such a position as to refuse, at the moment.” The vampire blinks. He did not intend to say that. “Actually, I believe I am concussed."

 

“All the more reason, then,” Sypha says, steeling herself visibly. “What’s easiest for you? My wrist? Or my neck? Or somewhere else?” 

 

“Wherever you are comfortable.” 

 

She thinks for a moment. “I’ll do the neck, then.” 

 

Trevor places a hand on Sypha’s shoulder. His gaze is practically ferocious when his eyes meet Alucard. Trevor glances pointedly at the knife. “If things get out of hand…”

 

“They won’t, I assure you.”

 

“Alright then,” Sypha exhales. “I’m ready.” She’s shrugged off the uppermost layer of her Speaker robes and folded them on the table while talking. The skin of her neck, shoulders, and arms are bare. Sypha does not shake, but Alucard does. 

 

Trevor’s gaze bores holes into Alucard’s pounding head as he opens his mouth and starts to lean closer to Sypha’s neck. It looks to Trevor almost as if Alucard is cold. He is positively shivering from head to toe, little minute shocks racing through his limbs. It is the most expressive Trevor has ever seen Alucard look. It’s unnerving. 

 

Trevor blurts out, “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re actually shaking.” 

 

Alucard sighs, visibly relieved to put this off, and pulls away from Sypha quickly. She frowns. 

 

“I’ve only ever fed from another in this manner once before. My mother would procure the blood I needed through medical means and bottle it for my consumption. She said she didn’t want me to anguish over my humanity anymore than I already might, given what I am. However, my father disagreed. When I was an adolescent, he took me on my first hunt. That was the only time I drank from another living person.” Alucard knows he’s shaking but is powerless to stop it. Vampiric instincts are urging him to  _take, take it all_ while his human mind is desperately clinging to the last tethers of his restraint.

 

Trevor interjects, looking confused. “There was blood with you, in Gresit. It was in those big containers by your coffin.”

 

“My mother taught me how to extract blood medically. I assure you that is all I have done for years, Belmont.”

 

He feels light-headed and nearly weightless. His teeth buzz as if he’s about to throw up and his stomach continues to cramp. _Take, take it all._ The inhuman side of him is practically alight with Sypha’s and Trevor’s heartbeats. (He loathes himself for thinking it, but he’s so exhausted that part of him wants to just go ahead and give in, only because he’ll be able to sleep once it’s done.) 

 

“Did they die?” Sypha is ruthless in her questioning. 

 

“No.” And he’s not lying, it’s true. It’s part of why his father was a little disappointed in him, that day. While his mother had her humanity and her culture to pass to him, his father had his vampiric instincts and his culture, too. It is a culture to which bloodlust comes naturally. 

 

Alucard knows he was loved, as a child. He knows his father loved him.  _ (My boy. Lisa, our boy.)  _ He  _ knows  _ it so much it hurts. But part of his father was always baffled by who Alucard was. His warring instincts never quite made sense. His father was visibly hurt, that day. When his first and only victim got up and walked away, smiling, his father was quiet. He was afraid of the distance he saw growing between himself and his son. 

 

“Are you nervous?” Sypha’s hand has found its way into his own, again.  _ How does she keep doing that?  _ Sypha laughs. 

 

Alucard blinks owlishly. “Did I say that outloud?” 

 

Even Trevor chuckles despite himself. “C’mon, you useless bat. You’re delirious. Drink up already.” 

 

“What did you just call me?” 

 

“Boys!” Sypha bites the corner of her lip to keep from laughing. “He is right though.” At Alucard’s pained look, she adds, “I know, it’s pretty uncharacteristic of him.”

 

“Hey, watch it. I’ll let you swoon and fall, I swear to God,” Trevor prods at her back. But she’s not paying attention to him anymore.

 

“C’mon, I can take it. I’m stronger than I look, trust me.”

 

Alucard finds himself leaning forward, picturing Sypha wielding flame beneath her fingers. Recalling that image of her strength assures him. It’s the conviction he needs, in the end. 

 

It happens quickly. 

 

He leans in, his nose brushing the side of her neck, his lips skimming over her pulse. She tilts her head back to give him better access. Trevor slides up closer behind her so that he can take her body weight against his chest. And then Alucard bites, just like that. 

 

Sypha gives one startled gasp. She’s still holding Alucard’s hand, somehow. It jumps in his hold before squeezing once, tightly. Reassurance. Trevor’s hold on her also tightens in concern. 

 

“Sypha?”

 

“I’m fine, it’s not too bad. Just a pinch.” She sounds out of breath, but calm.

 

With that, Alucard begins to drink. 

 

With the first mouthful he shudders powerfully, a whole-body experience. His feet spasm against the floor once before stilling. A low groan punches its way out of his chest. Alucard feels that first gulp down in his very marrow. He finds himself leaning further into Sypha’s space, tilting her head just the right way and pulling her just a little bit closer by the hip. Her leg burns hot beside his where they are now pressed flush against each other. She lets out a startled yelp before settling. 

 

With the second swallow, he catches fire from the inside out. Her blood is hot and salty and it tastes earthy with the magic that is rooted deep in her bones. Alucard is close enough to smell the sweat on her skin and that alone rips another sound out of his throat. If it wasn’t so perfect, he would be more embarrassed about the noises he’s making. He is suddenly awake in his own body again. He feels everything, from the ache in his skull to the small fractures that reside there to the cramping of his empty stomach and the fever of his need. 

 

With the third gulp, he realises that he’s gotten hard. With the fourth, he discovers that he has lifted Sypha with one hand around her hip and set her down in his lap. With the fifth, he feels his concussion ebb away. At the sixth, he feels his skull knit back together. 

 

Sypha whimpers. 

 

Alucard comes up from her neck with one last swipe of his tongue over the wound, gasping. He feels like his chest should be heaving with the exertion of stopping (part of him is screaming  _ good lord why did we stop _ ) but he finds himself unearthly still. 

 

He can’t bring himself to look Sypha or Trevor in the eye (christ, he’s  _ still hard _ ) and instead he inspects the two puncture wounds just under her jaw. They’ve already closed. There is one small swipe of blood running down from the bite towards her collar bone. His cock twitches at the sight. 

 

“Sypha, say something.” Only then does Alucard realize that Trevor is talking—that Trevor has been talking the entire time. He has followed Sypha like a magnet, even as she was tugged into Alucard’s lap ( _ oh god, what a mess).  _ As a result, Trevor’s legs are now bracketing him. The other man’s knees are pressed into Alucard’s sides. Trevor has got an arm braced around Sypha’s waist and one hand on the handle of the knife, still resting in place on the table. 

 

“Shush,” she mumbles, a little dazed. Alucard feels the words against his cheek. Sypha lets her forehead hit his shoulder and noses into  _ his  _ neck in a parody of their earlier position. She sighs once, long and slow. “‘M fine. It just… wow.”

 

“‘Wow’ as in I need to stake the bastard?”

 

Sypha weakly slaps Trevor on the bicep of the arm he’s got around her waist. The other hand, Alucard realises with horror, is still in his. He squeezes and prays that she can’t feel him through his pants. 

 

“I only took a pint,” Alucard says, a little desperate in the face of Trevor’s protective glare. 

 

Skeptical, Belmont asks Sypha, “You’re sure you feel fine?” though he’s looking at Alucard. 

 

“Mhm. Stop worrying, you mother hen.” She sits up, pulling away from Alucard. Her cheeks are flushed and the rest of her is a little bit more pale than it was before. She smiles wolfishly at him. “You’re blushing,” she notes, leaning her back against Trevor’s chest. She’s positively  _ smirking.  _

 

“Dear god, he is, isn’t he?” Trevor looks torn between laughing and running away. 

 

“Don’t be a baby, Treffy.”

 

“Stop that,” he jostles her playfully. She giggles. The sound is high and bright. “Alright. I don’t want you… necking me, so.” He rolls up his sleeve, baring his forearm. Alucard swallows, the taste of Sypha still in his mouth. 

 

He crosses his legs as inconspicuously as he can manage. 

 

Sypha catches his eye. She smirks. 

 

Fuck. 

 

Trevor shifts once more, tightening his legs on either side of the bench. As it stands, the hunter is straddling the bench, facing Alucard with Sypha sandwiched between them. Sypha stops leaning so heavily on Trevor and sits up, planting an elbow on the tabletop behind her. She still sits in the vee of Trevor’s open legs, facing Alucard. With faux confidence, Trevor extends his bare arm over her shoulder. His wrist falls just to the side of Alucard’s face, close enough to smell the sweat of his skin.

 

_ Fuck.  _

 

“Well? What was that about my virgin blood being safe?” 

 

Without thinking, Alucard snips back. “I said your neck, not your blood, Belmont. Don’t worry, your virginity is still intact.” Sypha laughs again. 

 

“Fuck you, bat-boy.” 

 

Quickly, before he can think twice about drinking the blood of this absolute idiot, Alucard gets a firm grip on Trevor’s wrist and leans down, mouth open. 

 

Trevor’s pulse leaps as if struck by lightning. His fear is palpable. Alucard, fangs bare and glinting in the fire light, licks him once from wrist to elbow. 

 

“Shit! You bastard! That’s so gro— _ oh”  _

 

Alucard sunk his fangs into his wrist like butter while the other man was distracted. 

 

The first swallow hits him like a heavy blow taken right to the gut. He is saltier than Sypha with a much darker, headier taste. It quickly floods his senses and drowns out all rational thought. It’s like the first time all over again… that first ever sip all those years ago, and the first mouthful of Sypha, too… Trevor Belmont’s blood hits Alucard like liquid fire.

 

With his free hand not gripping Trevor’s wrist, Alucard clasps the back of Trevor’s neck. He pulls him in closer. His nails scratch at the other man’s hair. 

 

A second swallow.

 

Someone somewhere makes a noise. Alucard doesn’t know who and he doesn’t care. 

 

Another. 

 

Someone’s hand is on Alucard’s hip. Helpless, he arches into the contact, pushing up with his hips like a wild thing. 

 

Another gulp. 

 

His cock throbs. He knows he moans because he feels the vibration of it on his lips and against the skin of Trevor’s wrist. His pulse is a steady drumbeat. Alucard is pulled out to sea by the tide of Trevor’s blood.

 

Nothing hurts. Even as aroused as he is, nothing hurts. His teeth ache, chasing the sweetness of the blood pooling in his mouth. 

 

The contentment of fullness sets in. With one last luxuriously sinful slide of his tongue, Alucard pops off of Trevor’s wrist. 

 

“Trevor?” The hand on Alucard’s hip belongs to Sypha. He pulled Trevor so close in the moment that, in order to remain comfortably not-crushed, Sypha has hooked her chin over Alucard’s shoulder and pressed herself close to him, chest to chest. She can’t keep an eye on Trevor from this position. 

 

Still with a firm grip on the Belmont’s neck, Alucard allows himself to look. 

 

He thinks, desperately, that he could come from the sight alone. 

 

Trevor is holding himself painfully rigid, his shoulders tense with the effort of maintaining his upright posture. His mouth is open and a reedy little whining sound escapes his lips on every exhale. His head lolls back, boneless, into Alucard’s hold. As a result, part of his chin and all of his neck are bared to him in the perfect picture of submission. His eyes are closed, lashes dark against the bright crimson blush of his cheeks.

 

“Trevor…” Alucard exhales his name involuntarily. He sounds downright sensual to his own ears. 

 

_ What a fucking mess.  _

 

Without warning, Sypha is jostled just the smallest bit more into Alucard. It’s hardly noticeable. (Alucard feels hyper aware of every atom of his being. Every nerve they touch is alight and singing. Gone is the pervasive numbness.) She squeezes his hip harder, lets out a tiny surprised “oh!” with the movement. 

 

Slowly, the cogs of his blood-drunk brain turn. Like it’s coming to him as a memory from a dream, Alucard registers the little jerky movements of Trevor’s hips. The flush on the man’s cheeks. The sounds. 

 

Trevor Belmont is hard and grinding his erection up against Sypha. Trevor Belmont is hard from _Adrian Tepes_ sucking his blood and is grinding his erection up against Sypha Belnades like a shameless _whore._

 

Alucard makes a punched out sound caught between a moan and a shout. He clenches his eyes shut and tries to just  _ breathe for five seconds  _ and get a modicum of his composure back. 

 

_ You have to move. You have to move now before they move first,  _ a voice screams in the back of his head. In the absence of his concussion, his own conscience is terribly loud.

 

“Sypha, are you alright to support yourself?” He’s already pulling away, working quickly but carefully. 

 

“Yes, but—Alucard, wait!”

 

But he’s already gone. 

  
  


* * *

 

 

Awareness returns with each laborious breath. Alucard finds himself in his old personal library—a small room with high vaulted ceilings, packed to the brim with books his mother gifted to him. It has remained unchanged, for the most part. A layer of dust has settled over the available surfaces. He runs his finger along the upholstery of his favorite couch. It comes away blackened with filth. 

 

He sits on the floor. 

 

This room was given to him as Adrian Tepes. It was meant for the version of him that was a son. A scholar. A healer. “A person wholly unique”, his mother used to say. This space, this collection… it is no longer his. No one alive would call him son. He has abandoned the mantle of scholar and certainly that of a healer, as well. No longer is he Adrian Tepes, son to Lisa and Vlad. He is Alucard, slayer of Dracula. There’s no coming back from that.

 

Adrian Tepes would have tried to save his father and his mother and he would have succeeded. And certainly, Adrian Tepes would not have drank from the only two people that have remained kind to him in this world. Adrian Tepes would have been smart enough to keep himself at arm's length. Alucard was too fucking vulnerable for that. 

 

If he strains his ears over the ragged, desperate wheeze of his lungs, if he expands his awareness past the heavy burn in his eyes, brimming with unshed tears, Adrian imagines he can still hear his mother calling for him from elsewhere in the castle, as she used to all those years ago. A lifetime ago. 

 

_ Adrian!  _

 

But he is alone. Terribly alone. 

 

When the pain returns, it comes without warning. It comes all at once. And Adrian Tepes is lost to it. 


	2. Bending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My god, how have you managed to keep yourself alive for thirty-odd years?” Sypha grouses, smacking Trevor harshly on the back to dislodge the bread that is currently obstructing his windpipe. 
> 
> Between coughs, he shouts, “Sorry, fucking—thirty? Thirty!?”
> 
> “Sorry, it’s hard to tell through all the dirt and the alcoholism. It ages you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW! I'm absolutely floored by the response this little self-indulgent fic has gotten. I promise I will get around to replying to everyone's comments individually. Each one means so much to me! 
> 
> Anyways, here's the second installment! This chapter will be the shortest of the three. If that comes as a disappointment, rest assured that the third and final chapter will be the longest and the smuttiest.

_ You were not fast enough,  _ her brain helpfully supplies as she stumbles to her feet moments after Alucard has already fled the scene of the crime. She dashes (a bit wobbly) after him, only to find the dark corridors horribly, mockingly empty. The glowing light of the kitchen casts and stretches Sypha’s shadow out in front of her. It’s mocking her, too.  _ You were not fast enough to follow the final battle through these halls. Now, you were not fast enough to stop him from leaving.  _

 

Trevor comes up behind her, stumbling. His shadow swallows hers. Even with the company of two shadows, the hallway that greets them still remains disappointingly empty. 

 

“Where’d he go?” His voice is a low rumble. 

 

Sypha raises her hand to rub at the pulse point beneath her jaw. She can still feel the phantom pull and pressure of Alucard’s teeth in her veins. She can still feel the sensation of his gasps and his moans against her skin. (She can still feel the fizzle of arousal in her belly and the wetness between her legs).  _ Let me help you,  _ she had said, and some help she was. He’s run off, now. 

 

“Alucard!” Sypha calls out to the hallways. There is no answer. 

 

After a beat “Shit,” Trevor remarks. 

 

“Yeah… ‘shit’ is right.”

 

* * *

 

 

For a lack of anything else to do except wait, Sypha and Trevor begin scrounging up a palatable meal from the kitchen. Sypha is pleasantly surprised to find, among other things, an assortment of breads, cheeses, and fruit preserves. The cheeses were kept in some sort of cold storage unit that appears to be of the same nature as many of the inexplicable, not-quite-magical items in the castle. Trevor locates dried pork and a few fancy bottles of wine. To his credit, when she glares at him, he sighs and tucks the bottles back from where they came. Sypha busies herself with cutting thick slices of cheese while Trevor uses the formerly boiling—now lukewarm water—from the kettle to make tea with the herbs Alucard had helpfully set out before… well, before everything that happened. 

 

Miraculously, neither speak throughout their impromptu meal preparation. Trevor can hardly  _ look  _ her in the eyes, let alone open his mouth to have a conversation with her. Sypha thinks he would have sat at the other table entirely if she hadn’t grabbed him by the belt to stop him and glared him into submission. 

 

It’s alright, though. Sypha isn’t feeling too talkative herself, at the moment. She decides to let him brood, for now. She has brooding of her own to do. 

 

Sypha is the kind of person who likes having a plan. When traveling, Speaker tribes always have a sense of where they are going, approximately when they should get there, and a clear-cut reason for going there at all. When providing aid to communities, the plans she and her people made allowed them to employ their resources as efficiently as possible. The art of planning has allowed Sypha to help so many. Without her plan to sneak off into the catacombs beneath Gresit, none of this would have happened at all. So, sitting here, eating the best meal she’s had in ages, Sypha begins her tried and true method of planning.

 

First off, she asses the damage.

 

_ I pressured my half-vampire, half-human companion—with whom I just saved the known world—to take blood from me and the last of the Belmonts (which was a bit of an unexpected, though not unwelcome turn-on for everyone involved) and this idiotic venture resulted in said Belmont rutting against my thigh while said half-vampire blushed like a cherry and ran for the hills, abandoning both the Belmont and I in what remains of Dracula’s castle.  _

 

Sypha resists the urge to pull her own hair out. 

 

Off the top of her head, she knows a few things must be done. In no particular order, Alucard must be found, Trevor must be spoken to, the blood and sweat and ash must be washed out of her hair, and she needs to secure a place for them to sleep. Preferably, a place where neither Trevor nor Alucard will run away from to wallow and brood, respectively. Finding Alucard should take care of at least two of those issues. 

 

“Trevor.” He jumps about a foot in the air, audibly banging his knees against the underside of the table and aspirating on the piece of bread he had been eating. “My god, how have you managed to keep yourself alive for thirty-odd years?” She grouses, smacking him on the back to dislodge the piece of bread that is currently lodged in his windpipe. 

 

Between coughs, he shouts, “Sorry, fucking—thirty?  _ Thirty? _ ”

 

“Sorry, it’s hard to tell through all the dirt and the alcoholism. It ages you.” Trevor splutters. “C’mon, we have to go find Alucard.”

 

Where he had been allowing her to pull him up and off of the bench, Trevor now abruptly stops, going stone-still. “Sypha—”

 

“No, you listen to me, Belmont. Whatever remained of Alucard’s family just turned to ash before his eyes. In a moment of great pain for him, we managed to…  _ complicate  _ all of this about a thousand times further—”

 

“I  _ told you  _ it was crazy to have him,” he drops his voice to a frantic whisper, “ _ feed on you _ and you didn’t listen and now look where we are—”

 

“ _ You  _ were involved, too and what other  _ choice _ —”

 

“—lost in Dracula’s fucking nightmare castle—”

 

“—did we have? Would you have let him  _ starve _ to placate your irrational fears—”

 

“— _ irrational?  _ The man that  _ you  _ were getting all  _ friendly  _ with is a fucking  _ vampire— _ ” 

 

“I was ‘getting friendly’? You were the one  _ dry humping me _ !” 

 

Sypha’s own voice echoes uncomfortably around the kitchen. It’s like a pin dropping into a well. The fall takes a silent eternity.  In the wake of her shout, Trevor’s face has gone pinched and distant. The weight of her words hang heavy and oppressive. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Trevor says, suddenly, quietly. 

 

Where Sypha just moments ago couldn’t stop heated words from bubbling up from her mouth, now nothing comes to her. With each second that stretches by, Trevor’s expression becomes more pained—and more unreadable, too.  _ Say something.  _

 

“It—you—Trevor—it’s okay,” she splutters. He says nothing. He’s so far from her, suddenly. Unreachable. She takes a nervous step towards him. He takes a step back. “Trevor—”

 

“I’m  _ sorry, _ ” he repeats and god if the barely-concealed emotion in his voice doesn’t just break her right in half. She steps towards him again, the urge to touch becoming overwhelming, only for him to step away once more. She pursues him until he has nowhere left to step back to. The man who can stand his ground alone against a squadron of demons, unflinching, is giving ground to her so quickly, so easily.  _ He fears nothing,  _ Sypha thinks,  _ but right now, he’s afraid of me.  _

 

When she gets him within reach, she’s quick to throw her arms around his chest, as it’s all she can really reach comfortably. His arms get trapped awkwardly between their torsos. Immediately, he flinches like she’s punched him and then tenses even more than he had been previously. But still, she presses in closer, hugs him tighter. 

 

“And  _ I’m  _ sorry, too, Trevor.” Sypha thinks her voice comes out pretty muffled from where she’s got her face pressed close to his stinky, dirty shirt. She hopes that, although muffled, it’s enough. “I should have taken things slower. I would have, if I had known but I… I didn’t know, I didn’t think… He’s our friend, Trevor. We’re all he’s got. I couldn’t… not do anything to help him. Even if I had known… I’d do it again. For that I’m sorry." She inhales and exhales again slowly and purposefully before continuing. "You don’t need to apologize to me. I plunged us headlong into this.”

 

“Sypha, but I… Okay, I’m not the most tactful, but I’ve never…” She can feel him swallow hard. “I’ve never done anything to anyone without asking.” She knows instantly what she’s talking about. Her own words, thrown carelessly, sting her like a crack of Trevor’s whip;  _ you were the one dry humping me!  _

 

Trevor gulps and continues, his anger ( _with himself,_  Sypha realizes with dawning horror) hot in his eyes. “I may be a lot of things, but I am not someone who… who would  _force_ themselves on—”

 

“Trevor, shut up.” Sypha winds her arms impossibly tighter around him, even though it hurts her aching muscles. This is more important than the sore spots she’ll have in the morning. “You did not force anything on me, you stupid man. If anyone forced anything, it was me. I threw us, all of us, into something none of us were really prepared for or really understood. Nor should I have said what I said to you just now. I may…” she inhales deeply, pausing before continuing, “... have a little bit of a temper, at times.” 

 

Trevor sputters out a laugh that sounds suspiciously like an especially tearful wheeze. 

 

“A little?” 

 

She steps on his foot. It can’t possibly hurt him, but it’s more of the principal of the thing at this point. He wriggles an arm out from between them and for one terrifying second, Sypha thinks she said the wrong thing again—that Trevor is going to push her away— _ please, please don’t…  _ But instead, he carefully settles the arm around her shoulders and squeezes her back. 

 

All the air leaves her lungs in one big sigh. Quietly, they recover and breathe together.

 

After a moment, “I can’t  _ believe  _ you thought I was  _ thirty.”  _

 

* * *

 

It is not them who finds Alucard, in the end. Instead, he finds them. 

 

Embarrassingly enough, Sypha and Trevor’s master strategy for finding Alucard consisted of the two of them picking a random direction, walking in that direction, throwing open every door they found along the way, and calling his name repeatedly and loudly into each room. 

 

He finds them in the grand hall (how they made it all the way back there, Sypha has no clue, this place is a maze) and says nothing. He just smiles at them and laughs a little under his breath. Trevor bristles and rolls his eyes, but Sypha is just… she’s just glad to see him.

 

The front doors to the castle are still open and the sun is rising outside, painting them all in pale, luminous shades of yellow and blue. Sypha turns to Alucard, smiles.  _ I may not be fast enough everytime, but I’m damn well always going to catch up to you,  _ she resolves. For a moment, the three of them exchange no words. They simply stand, shoulder to shoulder, staring out at the morning sky. Behind them, their thin shadows overlap, elongating and becoming virtually indistinguishable. 

 

Touch comes easy to Sypha. The thing people tend to miss about it is that it is a language all its own. People tell just as many stories by the way they move through the world as they do with their words. And, like any language, the language of touch is one Sypha prides herself on having studied. Even more so, it is a language she is fluent in. As a people that live by the art of communication and the value of storytelling, Speakers have an openly affectionate culture. It only makes sense. Speaker children are taught to live their lives understanding the importance of stories and histories in all their forms. A companionate embrace manages to say just as much as an oral tradition. There is a history in and of itself in the way a mother holds her child, in the way a friend reaches for another, in the way enemies reach out to hurt each other. Sypha understands that she is a particularly tactile individual given her upbringing. But it has never failed her. Sometimes (and maybe this is blasphemous for a Speaker, but Sypha can’t be bothered to care) the simple act of touching someone just says  _ more _  than words ever could . 

 

Perhaps this is why she finds herself reaching for Trevor’s hand and winding an arm around Alucard’s shoulders. 

 

Alucard tenses underneath her arm. She studies him carefully for a moment. Although no longer visibly injured, he has looked better. His skin and clothes are filthy, his hair is matted and tangled, and his eyes are suspiciously red and puffy. He looks so profoundly unhappy and so desperate to hide his unhappiness at the same time.  _ He’s lost so much.  _ She squeezes his shoulder and holds his gaze gently until his facade cracks. His smile is frail and tragic. However, as they maintain eye contact, the tension ebbs away from him and he begins to lean into her touch.

 

They walk, all three of them together, towards the threshold of the castle. United, they stand and watch the sun rise over a country they have saved, savoring the moment for a long time. Something warm and knotted deep in her chest begins to expand.

 

Sypha holds on to each of them, tightly.

 

* * *

 

Alucard leads them to a bath somewhere on the second (or maybe third?) floor of the castle. If she was being honest, Sypha had expected to find a rather nice bathroom with a bathtub that would perhaps be large enough for her to fully extend her legs in. It is a castle, after all. And Dracula was an exceptionally tall man. However, she was not expecting to find an entire bath-house with one large, open tub big enough to bathe up to fourteen men at once. 

 

She thinks her jaw hits the floor with an audible snap when it drops. 

 

The bathroom is one large room free from doors, long curtains, or walls. The large, rectangular tub sits sunken into the ground in the center of the room, framed by the glistening marble floor. The marble composes not only the flooring but the walls as well, giving the entire space an overwhelmingly clean and sterile feeling. An ornate golden chandelier filled with artificial _(electric_ , Alucard had said) lights is mounted proudly in the center of the ceiling. The crystals that decorate the chandelier dangle like water drops, suspended in the air. There appear to be benches in the water of the actual tub, though it is hard to tell through the steady cloud of steam that emanates effortlessly off of its surface. Some sort of mechanical system seems to be heating the large tub, judging by the pipes that run along the walls and disappear into the floors. There are sets of cabinetry along the walls as well as benches and movable, rigid dividers that appear to be Eastern in origin. Interrupting the flow of the cabinetry is the occasional oval-shaped mirror resting in an ornate silver frame. 

 

“Holy mother of fuck,” Trevor breathes on an awed exhale. “I grew up noble but… definitely not this noble. Jesus, Alucard.” 

 

Alucard gives a small, shy smile, sitting down on one of the benches and beginning to unlace his boots. “Not only is the castle a scientific marvel, it exists as a living piece of art, in a sense. My father was no stranger to luxury and he found himself with the means to create such luxuries for his family. We used this space often. This bath was deep enough that I learned how to swim in it.” He tells the story with a wistful, far away look in his eyes. 

 

Although he looks better off than he had in the immediate wake of their victory, Alucard still looks drained. As he gazes out over the expanse of the bathroom, Sypha thinks she might be able to see a hint of tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. 

 

_ How painful it must be to walk in the places that your family once walked together, knowing that they are gone...  _ She finds herself clenching her fists at her sides.  _The pain he must feel..._  

 

With his shoes off, Alucard begins to cross the room, opening and inspecting the contents of the cabinets as he goes. Sypha watches him, finding herself particularly fixated on the odd intimacy of seeing the man’s bare feet for the first time. Suddenly, she comes to a startling realization. 

 

Alucard is beautiful. 

 

Sure, Sypha understood that he was exceptionally attractive upon meeting him for the first time. She’s not blind. However, there is a difference between objective attraction and true beauty. It is only in this moment, watching Alucard’s battle-torn clothes begin to stick to him as a result of the warm, humid air of the room, that Sypha realizes that he is truly beautiful. In the backdrop of such immense luxury, she has found herself stuck not on the crystal chandelier nor the mysteriously heated water. Instead, she finds herself observing something as mundane as his bare feet against the cool marble and the way his dampening clothing sticks to his skin. In one single moment, the truth of his beauty has careened into her brain at full speed. The force of the realization leaves her near dizzy. 

 

Oblivious to her plight, Trevor quickly follows in Alucard's footsteps and wrestles his boots off before following the other man. Once abandoned, the smell from his shoes immediately becomes overwhelming. Making a face, Sypha is quick to follow in their wake. (She leaves her shoes closer to Alucard’s than Trevor’s, worried that the intense stink will rub off on her own pair and render them a lost cause.) 

 

Alucard is laying out towels that, frankly, look fluffier than some of the softest blankets Sypha has ever seen. Trevor, with all the impulse control of a child, shoves his face into the soft fabric of one and makes a groan that sounds as though he’s moments away from death. 

 

“You’ll get it dirty if you rub all over it before you bathe,” Sypha finds herself chiding him. Alucard saves her the trouble and snatches the towel away from Trevor himself as he passes by. Alucard has also gathered a variety of bottles and soaps. He sets them towards the bath’s edge on a silver serving tray. Gesturing to the odd, wood and tapestry dividers, Alucard remarks, “Feel free to undress with some semblance of privacy.”

 

Trevor makes a face but in the end acquiesces and wanders off. 

 

Sypha sees an opportunity and jumps on it. 

 

“Alucard, about what happened earlier—” his face goes carefully blank all of the sudden, as if his expression was composed of sand that was suddenly blown away in the wind. 

 

“You have my sincerest apologies for my conduct. It was inappropriate and inexcusable. I should have suggested we first explore other options before—” 

 

Sensing that this conversation might be going in a similar direction as the one she had with Trevor _(god, why are both of these men such children?)_ Sypha silences Alucard with a firm grip on his arm. She steps close into his space. 

 

“You silly man, I swear, Trevor and you both have zero sense. You owe us no apology. I was intending to apologize to _you_.” His golden eyes  _ (molten gold, like fire and the sunrise met in one melting pot)  _ widen in surprise. “I should not have pushed you or Trevor into anything so suddenly. I got carried away. My intentions were to help but… well,” she slides her hand down his arm, taking his hand in hers and gripping it firmly. “I managed to scare both of you off at once, in a way.” 

 

Alucard opens his mouth as if to say more, his face scrunched up as if he’s about to ask a question, when a loud, echoing splash startles them both out of their conversation. 

 

Trevor comes up beaming from the water, a massive grin stretching his face. 

 

“This is better than sex  _ and  _ booze, combined.”

 

With that resounding encouragement, Sypha and Alucard abandon their conversation and quickly retreat individually towards the privacy afforded by the dividers. Sypha finds herself slower to undress than Alucard. When she goes to lift her robes above her head, the deep, jagged scratch across her shoulder pulls uncomfortably. She drops her arms with a wince. While the area is tender and sore, it has stopped bleeding, which is promising. Sypha quickly makes up her mind to leave her improvised bandage on for the time being and dress the wound after the rest of her stops feeling so unforgivably filthy. 

 

She knows Alucard has finished undressing before her because, as she's still examining the wound, she hears Trevor turn to say something to the man, only to verbally stop dead in his tracks. It’s quiet in the bathroom suddenly, save for the ambient sound of the water lapping at the edge of the tub. 

 

“What is it, Belmont?”  _ He’s defensive,  _ she realizes.  _ Uh oh.  _

 

“N-nothing, I just, uh…” 

 

“Never seen another man naked before?” Alucard supplies. He seems to be teasing in the wake of Trevor's obvious embarrassment. 

 

_Why would he be embarrassed?_ She thinks of Trevor with his head tossed back, his eyes closed and fluttering, his face and chest flushed, his erection straining for friction, his hips helplessly grinding upwards into her thigh while his mouth released a steady stream of needy whines. All because of...  _Oh._

 

“Fuck you, of course I have,” Trevor immediately snaps back. An awkward silence descends upon the room. It is powerfully thick. “Don’t give me that look. Sure, I was excommunicated but not because I’m—” 

 

Sypha steps out from behind the curtain. “Trevor. I do not want to hear how you were going to finish that sentence.” She spends a fleeting moment wondering if she was too harsh. Then, she catches sight of the surprise and... hurt on Alucard's face.  _Nope, not too harsh at all._

 

Trevor’s face is positively crimson. His eyes flicker down to Sypha’s naked chest before snapping back to her face, forcefully. He gets even redder. “No, shit, I didn’t mean it like that. Fuck, I am far too sober to have this conversation,” he grits out, tipping his head back to stare woefully at the ceiling.

 

“A conversation about, what, your discomfort and perhaps disapproval for men who love other men?” Sypha finds herself needling something that she knows is clearly a sore topic. She can feel Alucard’s eyes snap to her, then.  _ Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.  _ She again pictures the hurt on Alucard's face when they both thought Trevor might be about to say something awful.  _No, this is necessary._

 

“Woah, okay,  _ no,  _ back up. Who said anything about disapproval?” 

 

“It was clear from your tone, Belmont.” Alucard’s voice is the lowest Sypha’s ever heard it. 

 

Trevor looks genuinely frustrated, now. In fact, he looks to be some combination of frustrated and alarmed. “Fuck, I am saying this all wrong,” he tries, desperately. “I… you see, I might, um. Oh Christ, fuck, I hate everything about this moment.” 

 

“Trevor,” Sypha encourages. He’s clearly uncomfortable but she needs to know what he is going to say. She is not entirely sure why, not yet, but everything about Alucard’s defensiveness, his posture, and his response is telling her that this is something that simply cannot be left alone. 

 

_ (She remembers just a scant few hours ago the sounds Trevor had made when Alucard had gotten his teeth around his wrist. Clear in her mind is how absolutely debauched the man looked just after Alucard had left. The sensation of his obvious arousal grinding against her...)  _

 

_ Oh, Trevor.  _

 

He starts again and each word seems to be one that he is forcefully dragging out of his throat. “There is... a not-so-holy reason I may have for having seen um… the things I have seen. But. It’s not…” he grumbles something indiscernible and fixes his eyes at some far off point before grunting out the words like they actually pain him. “It’s not a  _ thing.  _ I have but. It isn’t a  _ thing. _ ” 

 

She understands him, suddenly. 

 

Alucard splutters. “You—?” 

 

“Shut.  _ Up.”  _

 

“Trevor, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Trevor glares at her flatly before remembering she’s naked. He looks away quickly and grumbles something she can't catch. “Whether it is a ‘thing’ or not does not matter,” Sypha makes a point to say so nonchalantly while she lowers herself into the ( _ oh so)  _ blissfully hot water. She wants to touch him to comfort him. She wants to place a hand on his shoulder to steady him, to reassure him that this is not a problem, not in the slightest. Although she wants to, she can see his discomfort. It would not be welcome, not right now. Instead, she tosses him a bar of soap from the tray. “Now that everything is all sorted out, please see to it that you clean yourself before you pollute the entire water supply.” 

 

The rest of the bath is uneventful, even quiet. Sypha offers to comb out Alucard’s hair for him just as an excuse to get her fingers in it. To her absolute delight, it is just as soft as she had thought it was, if not softer. As she works soap into and out of his hair, she thinks she can feel him relax gradually into her.  _ This moment in and of itself is reward enough for defeating Dracula,  _ she thinks as Alucard hums contentedly into her touch, leaning into her hands like a pleased cat. 

 

While Alucard and Sypha don’t seem to be bothered by each others’ nudity, Trevor seems a little more offput, at least around Sypha. For the most part, he keeps his distance, but he seems to relax in the blissfully warm water, nonetheless. 

 

As Alucard wanders off to locate some spare clothing for everyone, Sypha finds herself once again alone with an obviously uncomfortable Trevor. She’s come to associate this particular expression as meaning he has something on his mind but isn’t sure how to say it yet. He looks like a man gearing himself up for war. Given the day they’ve all had and the levels of sheer exhaustion they’re all feeling, she decides to cut him some slack. 

 

“Trevor, it’s alright. That you’ve slept with men.” Trevor flinches at the words, like he’s waiting to be scolded. “What happened earlier with Alucard? That’s alright, too.” He hides it well, but Trevor fails to play off his initial shock at being called out for that particular moment. “Get out of your own head, Belmont,” She nudges him with her bare shoulder. He sways with the movement. (Privately, Sypha will admit that she does enjoy it so much when they allow her to move them.) 

 

Sypha’s smile is gentle and her voice is firm when she says, “I promise everything is going to work out.” She intertwines her fingers loosely with his. Trevor lets her.

 

* * *

 

Sypha is dressed first in a loose fitting shirt and a pair of (Alucard’s?) old pants which she has to continually tug back up over her hips. While he and Trevor dress, she slips out of the bathroom and into what appears to be guest-quarters that they had passed on their way up from the floor below. Sypha has a plan and she’s confident Alucard will be able to find her once they’re both dressed. She is too tired to wait.

 

There is a large, four-poster bed in the room as well as a linen closet, a fireplace, and a wardrobe. She quickly sets the fire, buzzing with anticipatory energy and over-exhaustion alike, and begins to root through the linen closet and wardrobe. After stripping the bed of its current dusty blanket, she begins to pile any spare blankets, quilts, or sheets she can find on top of it, gradually building up a nest of soft bed-things. 

 

After the day she has had, there is no possible way Sypha Belnades will stand for Alucard trying to sneak off again to mope alone in the dark, nor will she stand for Trevor wandering the castle for booze with which to drown his impending sexuality crisis. Sypha considers herself a woman of action and her patience has absolutely run out. 

 

It is clear now to her what these building feelings between the three of them are. From the lighthearted teasing to their growing sense of camaraderie to the shared terror of their final battle and finally to the unexpected intimacy and sexuality of their encounter in the kitchen, Sypha has come to terms with the fact that she has feelings for Trevor and Alucard. Both of them. Equally. And at the same time. 

 

And she’s reasonably certain that she’s not alone. She will be damned if she lets them walk away from each other—if she lets them walk away from the undeniable rightness of  _ them,  _ all three of them,  _ together.  _

 

If that means physically forcing them to sleep on either side of her to prevent any late-night solitary miserable shenanigans, so be it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come find me [here](trixree.tumblr.com) on tumblr!

**Author's Note:**

> If you've made it this far, thank you for reading! I can be found [here](trixree.tumblr.com) on tumblr, if you are so inclined.


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